@Ignatia Webs

Tuesday, 21 July 2015

Two people full of creative inspiration, namely Amy Burvall (@amyburvall) and Simon Ensor (@sensor63), pushed Steve Wheeler (@timbuckteeth) reflective capacities while sending him the #blimage challenge. From Steve Wheeler the challenge leaped over to the inspirational David Hopkins who wrote up a bloppost and sent the #blimage challenge my way, and right about the same time an additional picture came for the same challenge, sent by Whitney Kilgore (@whitneykilgore)... action was needed!
Multiple people have taken up this new challenge and Simon Ensor has made a wonderful Pinterest Blimage board, providing an overview of most #blimage messages and posts. It is now turning into an informal relay challenge connecting educators from everywhere... nice.

To all: I gladly take up the #blimage challenge! And will send it on, up up up into connected space. Warning: I will go beyond rational, right into utopia.

What is the #blimage challenge?
“You send an image or photograph to a colleague with the challenge that they have to write a learning related blog post based on it. Just make sure the images aren’t too rude. The permutations are blimmin’ endless.” Steve Wheeler, 2015 and adding a remark from Amy Burvall: "push one’s metaphorical thinking".

David Hopkins sent the following picture (taken at flight terminal and enhanced with his iPhone) to inspire me to write. At first informal, mobile learning arose as an idea, but then I read Whitney Kilgore's blogpost and it was so well written I decided to look at the picture from another angle.

Airports and Education: the money, the legal papers
I love learning on the move, whether it is on a train, a plane... anything that moves and allows me to reflect. It feels like staring into the abyss of my own mind, in search for wells of knowledge that seep up. Airports are strange places. It might look like a mixed set of people, but it isn't, a bit like education. People with enough money and legal papers and are able to travel gather in airports. Schools and universities are fairly similar.
Passengers check in (if all papers are in order; cfr diploma's, degrees, grades...), next they follow a route of their choosing, or chosen by their company (cfr school, sometimes chosen by parents), and finally head for a destination that might be within their country or right at the other side of any hemisphere (depending on the money and papers available).

Airports, like education are not inclusive. And I wished they would be. But maybe I am a utopian, a believer if you will. In my wildest dreams I fantasize about a world that is nomadic like the Crow. Every 20 to 30 years they need to search for new ground. In a wonderful book written by Jonathan Lear, called Radical Hope - and please buy it if you can, it was such a pleasure to go through - this quest for new ground is seen as a way to keep an open mind, to find new challenges that can be overcome and at the same time inspire us. There is something to be said about new challenges, both in life and in (lifelong) learning in particular. New challenges awaken new capacities, new insights, new meaning. And by creating new meaning, we - as a human race - might come closer together. As I said, I am a utopian.

Setting out new challenges also ignites the autotelic mind, as described in the Flow by Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi (a superb book on learning by means of goal setting to achieve a state of happiness), in which we can adapt our mind to find more meaning, and as such more happiness by learning in gradually more complex yet pleasurable ways.

Where was I? Ah yes, airports and the fantasized nomadic world. In my most positive minds eye, all of us are able to relocate ourselves to a different part of the world every let's say 20 years. All of us, entire families. In my minds eye we move and then we learn in that new environment, achieving a new understanding of all the different cultures - or residues of cultures, as a mix and blend is bound to happen. This results in global adaptations: no matter where we go, primary living conditions must be achievable for all at all locations: water, food, work or meaningful play, education. This means money or more specifically wealth is limited by a global rule that indicates that non of us need more money that what we need to fulfill out basic needs, plus achieve a personal objective of comfort (which is a democratically chosen definition).
At that point education will be inclusive, airports will comprise of all types of people, and traveling will be the pursuit of meaningful change and illumination... but what becomes of culture then?

Culture to inspire us, to reflect and to find common meaning or opposition

Inspired by the picture sent by Whitney of Finding the Big Red Ball, my mind started wondering about what this global nomadic life would mean culture wise?

Anyone into research or management or seemingly serious other professions knows that any white paper, thesis, dissertation, speech... blog only comes to life if some kind of cultural pearl is added to it. In fact adding a cultural token provides whatever you write with an extra dimension, almost a self-chosen stamp of approval. Quite amazing, as culture is at the same time seen as something less important, or should I say something less serious then many serious profession?

Learning is value laden, just like culture. Therefor cultural artifacts are one of the most symbolic and easiest objects to use to make distinctions of any kind: what is good and what is bad, what is man and what is woman, what is North and what is South, what is advanced and what is past... endless dichotomies. Even the simple act of adding a Big Red Ball to a city, gets discussions going on art ("Is this Art?" <=> "This is a great metaphor!"), culture ("Should we spend money on this?!" <=> "I would love this in my city, I know just the right spot and it will inspire people!")... and at the same time the Big Red Ball emphasizes the fact that the city (in this case Mons, Belgium in 2015) is a cultural city, triggering reflection, hence happening.

Learning is culture, it moves use, starts discussions, pushes us forward to limits we might imagine for ourselves, or by others (like this challenge). And by learning we alter culture, we add to it, or in lesser times we subtract from it (censorship)... but it always moves us towards meaning, build upon ideas, information, propaganda, facts...

Passing the #Blimage baton to the next, with this picture, a drawing of the inspirational artist Yslaire .

Thursday, 16 July 2015

Learning comes natural, and happens on a daily basis.As soon as the learning gene is put inside of us, we learn. We have to. We learn on our own, from non-living objects, in collaboration with all there is in the world, with all that interests our senses. And at every moment, it is the change that we feel or think we feel which we call learning. As such it is never the content which makes the difference, but the change that is taking place due to stimuli from within and/or from the outside. At times we think we must teach others those things we have learned, in the ways we learned them ... because it worked for us. My 4 year old son showed me yesterday that the person makes the journey, not the skills of others, not his parents learning paths, not the same approaches, ... but he himself with all that is inside of him.

I turned 48 two days ago. It was a simple, wonderful day, which made me realize once more what happiness is and how lucky I am. Just getting sung at in the morning 'lang zal ze leven...' by my beloved one's, talking over breakfast, the three of us watching an animated movie about a bee (Maya) who will at the end solve chaos by making two opposite parties work together, and during the evening (thanks to a wonderful MitMit) going out for dinner, just Ciska and me. You know that you are lucky if simplicity equals happiness and a regular day is filled with conversations and occasional laughter. Each of those moments is precious, and I value them dearly. I value all the people I know, and I am grateful for all those I encounter.

As a mother that only just started to understand a tiny bit of what it means to be wise, I set myself one goal when my (our) son was born: to - hopefully - let him grow up to be happy. To be in tune with himself wherever he chooses to go. Keeping this motto in mind, I make choices, or I react to circumstances if I think his happiness might be under thread.
Yesterday, Isaak and I went to visit family. After a while I got uncomfortable with what one of the kids did, he (2 years older then my son) kept teasing Isaak, throwing things at him, thumping him, although Isaak asked him to stop a couple of times. I signaled my son to come inside of the house for a moment, and I told him: "pick up some plants too and throw that to the other child. He will most likely stop with throwing things at you then". My son did it, but the other kid kept on throwing things, now with more energy.
I am not much of a talker under such circumstances. I am more of a mother hen: my eyes get tiny and I become more focused in a peculiar way. So, I step outside to get closer to my son. The playing continues, and my son gets pushed, once, twice ... I make a remark not to push my son anymore. Nothing threatening, just a verbal, clear sentence. And as he is pushed a third time, the Change-that-I-try-to-Avoid happens. I step forward to the kid, blasting out loud, being the fury that I can be, telling him never to push my son ever again, not now, and not even when I am not looking for I would track him down no matter where he would be. The space where we stood froze.
I always had this trait, it comes natural to me. Every single cell is activated, and from my inner core the anger starts to twirl until it comes out in a roar... a bit like a gargoyle warning off evil. I have used this physically born energy on multiple occasions, for both physical and mental purposes, as such I feel it is at times a helpful trait. For me, pushing back, claiming my place loudly, and being prepared to back it up with more is the right thing to do... for me.

My son turns to me and says: "Mom, I am sorry. I did try to throw things at him, but it looks like I did not do it right." and he looks at me with his big eyes, feeling sorry that I got mad because of him. All the energy turns to flatness, as I realized I tried to 'solve' something of his life, my way. And my way is not who he is. He is not a person that throws back whatever is thrown at him. He does not have the anger, and he does not need to have it. What he does, is turn things around. He comes from a different background, a different time, even from different genes... him, my beautiful son. He is his own beautiful self and he knows - intuitively - how to work with his knowledge and his environment and solve things his way. The way he acts is even described in the earliest tale related to his name. My son is the wisest, I am only one of his gargoyles.

Plato said that knowledge is innate, and that learning is the development of ideas buried deep in the soul ... It seems my son's soul is much more in tune with peace and wisdom than mine. So today, I write some more, asking questions, in a quest for knowledge and especially wisdom. My teachers have many faces, and one is very kind.

Saturday, 11 July 2015

If you are in that phase in your life, where you think "I want something else... I would love to engage in a satisfying, cognitive experience where at the end I might get an Internationally acclaimed PhD ... then get cracking now!". If you have an interest in Open Educational Resources (OER), Learning Analytics and/or Technology Enhanced Learning (MOOC, mobile learning, online education), this is you potential golden card, as it is now officially a Wild card, as the last of the Leverhulme Doctoral Full-time scholarships is now up for grabs. And the key action is: get your idea out there, and defend it to one of the World leading learning analytics scholars out there: Bart Rienties. I know the man (enlightened visionair), I know The Open University (a truly wonderful and nurturing research environment situated in Milton Keynes), and I know some of the opportunities (enhanced OER thinking, learning analytics... the basis of new departments across the globe)... it will be worth your while!The wild card? In fact the scholarships would have been taken by now, luckily, Bart Rienties felt that there is one more to be added, a specific, unique idea that would really make a difference in education, or show creative ideas, that would provide new educational evidence-based insights. So, although the formal deadline has been exceeded (see the formal description and information on the full-time scholarship here), there is one full-time scholarship remaining. Go for it immediately, the first one to make an impression will get it!Any candidates that are considering to pursue a PhD in TEL/Open World Learning can directly contact Bart Rienties personally at bart.rienties@open.ac.uk to arrange an informal skype to discuss the feasibility of their ideas. More information on the scholarship can be found here:http://www.open.ac.uk/creet/main/news/leverhulme-doctoral-scholarshipsThe Centre for Research in Education and Educational Technology (CREET), at the Open University has an international reputation for the quality of its research. Providing research students with a supportive environment and excellent research facilities ensures a future supply of first class researchers. CREET offers you a unique opportunity to study for a PhD in Technology Enhanced Learning, Learning Analytics, Open Educational Research, Education Language and Literacy Studies, with guidance from world-class experts in the field.

Friday, 3 July 2015

Peter Berking who is the lead of the MOTIF project just released the core slide deck for the newly adapted mLearning Design Reference model, and is now inviting us all to have a look at the reference model, and adapt it to our own needs. If we do have adaptations, Peter would love to hear about it, in order to add an extra layer of understanding to the model, coming from all of us practitioners.

The slide deck is protected under a Creative Commons "Attribution-nonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license"
Purpose: "From MoTIF project research, the learning community identified a need for instructional design processes optimized for the mobile platform that could most effectively inform, situate, and invite consideration of the new mobile learning approaches, device capabilities and usage patterns. This reference model is intended to address the need to inform, situate, and invite consideration of effective and innovative mobile learning approaches through following a mobile-optimized learning design process. As a reference model, it is an integration of existing theoretical and practical models rather than an original model. It has been developed through an open process via a community-based working group."

The MOTIF project has been running for a few years now, and the reports of each stage can be downloaded from the MOTIF site (you do need to create an account, with a nice guarantee that while logging in, your data - including contacts - will not be copied or used in anyway).

The slide deck is quite big (238 slides), but it is a 'work deck', which is filled with flow charts, performance support, design elements, conducting an instructional analysis, analysing learners and contexts, develop assessment instruments ... and it all starts out from the needs and goals that you want to achieve with your mLearning project. It is a really useful slide deck. I only went through it at this point, but I am going to try it out on a project soon, trying to figure out what I would adjust to make the reference model fit my own context and need/s. The slides are also set up to enable you to immediately click to extra information on the subject of that specific slide... nice.

The referred to frameworks are also of interest (Koole, with the FRAME framework, and - one I really like at this point in time: the champions framework).

Tuesday, 30 June 2015

This lively report - well it is a free book consisting of 318 pages - on Designing and Implementing an ICT for Development initiative in a resource constraint environment is one of the most amazing mobile learning and technology projects I have read. This is a book that can be used in any challenging setting, as it combines participatory design, teachers professional development, open badges as milestones in the learning process, earn-as-you-learn incentives, strategies from the known reality to a wishful future, and scaling up from one school to 26 schools! ... and all evidence-based in approach. The report is edited by Marlien Herselman and Adele Botha.

It is simply amazing how this talented and inspired group of people turned a really challenging situation in deep rural South Africa (Eastern Cape province) into a fruitful, inspiring educational surplus in only 3 years time! It combines mobile learning, literacy,

From the forword: "The book aims to provide an overview of the design and implementation of an Information and Communication Technology for rural education development initiative in a resource constrained environment. Various frameworks, models, guidelines and tools were developed by adopting Design Science Research as the chosen methodology. Certain specific case study phases were applied within the Design Science Research process and lessons were learnt in each phase which was documented as the initiative moved from one phase to the other. Certain steps were followed during each phase. The book provides an overview of how each of the components, within the ICT4RED Implementation Framework (Section 2), were managed and how they were operationalised to provide specific deliverables or to reach certain aims.
What became evident from this initiative was that it was NOT about the technology, but about the PEOPLE who are empowered to use the technology in order to improve their lives and that of their learners!This book will guide readers through the journey of this initiative and it is hoped that it will inspire all new prospective students, teachers and academia to realise that the value of using technology does not lie in that it can ever replace the teacher, but that it can enhance teaching and learning and transform traditional teaching methods in a classroom. This transformation can only be successfully done where technology is earned and not just given away or provided free of charge."

Friday, 26 June 2015

There are numerous EdTech related journals out there, but whenever I read the abstracts of most new IRRODL issues, I am intrigued. Is it my love for Canada which makes me more susceptible for possible news? Is it because I like the editors? Is it the determination to offer a platform to international authors that want to share research? Is it their website visuals using people from all ages, looks and combinations? Is it the mix between multiple EdTech options?... I do not know, but it sure happened again this morning while strolling through the abstracts and respectively some of the articles of this new IRRODL issue.

For instance: my first full read was an article entitled "Let's talk about digital learners in the digital era", an article reviewing all reference literature to 'digital natives' and concluding (not surprisingly, yet proving with fact and figures):The so-called “Digital Native” literature demonstrates that despite students’ high digital confidence and digital skills, their digital competence may be much lower than those of their “digital teachers”. Another read of this morning was entitled "Exploring intensive longitudinal measures of student engagement in blended learning" , where the following sentence from the abstract drew me into the full article: "We found that clarity of instruction and relevance of activities influenced student satisfaction more than the medium of instruction. Student engagement patterns observed in the log data revealed that exploring learning tools and previewing upcoming assignments and learning activities can be useful indicators of a successful learning experience."And I have another couple of articles ready for reading... joy!Here is the full list of articles of the new issue, all articles freely available and in HTML PDF MP3 EPUB formats... wonderful:

Editorial

Editorial: Volume 16, Number 3

Rory McGreal

Research Articles

Who studies MOOCs? Interdisciplinarity in MOOC research and its changes over time

George Veletsianos,Peter Shepherdson

Are the most highly cited articles the ones that are the most downloaded? A bibliometric study of IRRODL

Raidell Avello Martínez,Terry Anderson

Developing, using, and interacting in the flipped learning movement: Gaps among subject areas

Hsin-liang Chen,Kevin L. Summers

Exploring students’ intention to use LINE for academic purposes based on technology acceptance model

Willard Van De Bogart,Saovapa Wichadee

Learners’ goal profiles and their learning patterns over an academic year

Clarence Ng

The use of a mobile learning management system at an online university and its effect on learning satisfaction and achievement

Wednesday, 24 June 2015

Dianne Laurillard edited a report on "the Anatomy of a MOOC for teacher CPD" which can be downloaded here. In this 34 page report she looks at a MOOC that was provided by UNESCO and partners to enhance CPD of teachers by using a particular MOOC aimed at that subject.

The report provides an executive summary, describing the set-up, demographics, evaluation, lessons learned, and the pedagogical as well as financial value. It also provides a look into the approach to teaching and learning, design and development processes, various measures of success (more quantitative view and branding).

Quckly sharing the 10 take aways highlighted by the report:
1.The certification provided by these courses for professionals does have value (8.2).
2. The provision of collaborative learning functionality on the MOOC platform is an
urgent requirement, via both the grouping function and the shared production
activity (7.2).
3. Peer review is highly valued for activity of doing the review, rather than for
receiving a review (8.3)
4. A pedagogic approach that orchestrates a default sequence of linked and focused
collaborative learning activities is highly valued (8.3).
5. To maintain the value of peer review and collaboration within an on-demand
environment it will be important to help academics continue orchestrating this
process so that it continues to work (8.4).
6. We need flexible pricing to assist participants from emerging economies (8.4)
7. We need a less problematic technical authentication process to increase both
reach and revenue significantly (8.4).
8. The term ‘registration’ is not equivalent to ‘enrolment’ in a normal university
course; instead ‘engagement in week 1’ should be used as the only reasonable
equivalent (8.5).
9. Fee-paying undergraduates are subsidizing free education for highly qualified
professionals, and we need ways of ameliorating that situation (8.5).
10. We need further technical development to create learning analytics that will
support automated or semi-automated assessment for non-scientific subjects (8.5)

And the report concludes with: "The overall experience of both course team and participants on this CPD course was
overwhelmingly positive. The course team had the opportunity to learn a lot more about online
teaching and learning in this new environment, and also learned a great deal from the participants.
Their contributions on the Padlet wall, the Diigo site, and Scoop-It, for example, will be valuable
additional resources for later runs of the MOOC. It has proved to be a true experience of the coconstruction
of knowledge, as such courses should be."

Tuesday, 23 June 2015

The British Journal of Educational Technologies just published a Special Issue: Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs): ‘disrupting’ teaching and learning practices in higher education. The articles have been brought together by the wonderful academics Dick N'Gambi and VivienneVivienne.

The papers are of interest, unfortunately you need to pay for them or lend them at the least (thank you Stephen Downes for informing me, as I got access due to my OU account).

Here is the short list of article titles, with a multitude of interesting MOOC angles: assessment, engagement, methods, improving classroom instruction... The full set of articles with available html and pdf's can be found here.

Thursday, 18 June 2015

In the last few months I have been trying to keep up with xAPI (in vain mostly due to phd writing, I admit, but still some blogposts and reflections did happen at my end). Luckily Aaron Silvers and Megan Bowe are keeping me updated by generously sending out all that is available for xAPI, including shared case studies.

This last batch of xAPI case studies offer short (average 15 min) videos covering xAPI in a variety of settings. So real stories on how people in EdTech are using Experience API in their context.

The videos were taped during the Orlando happening, and they include wonderful experts:

Art Werkenthin on tracking PDF annotations with xAPI

Andy Johnson as well as Mike Rustici on LRS (learning record store)

Ben Betts on enabling personal data ownership

Chad Udell on implementing xAPI in mobile learning

David Rogers on using xAPI in medicine

Marty Rosenheck on driving innovation in teacher education

Megan Bowe on designing analytics with xAPI

...

A great set of learning videos there, and of interest to everyone with an urge to dig into xAPI.

Monday, 1 June 2015

A quick list with calls for papers (journals and conferences), workshops and events.

On the verge of submission: Online Educa Berlin 2015
One of the top online learning/training conferences in Europe. This year’s OEB will be addressing this question by looking at the challenge of modernity for education and training. If you have ideas, projects, solutions or findings in this area, we invite you to take part in the event and become a speaker! Conference location: hotel Intercontinental in Berlin, GermanyConference date: 2 - 4 December 2015Deadline for proposals: 1 June 2015 (today, but worth writing it up)Submission pagehere.More information: http://www.online-educa.com/

Workshop proposal for MOOC: MOOC based models for Hybrid Pedagogy From the website: "Since the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) phenomenon started to take off, Higher Education (HE) institutions have been facing a revolution. This revolution is challenging, not only HE business models, but also the established teaching and learning models. Although many scholars have seen MOOCs as a threat, others see in these courses an opportunity to propose and explore new models to transform residential education. These MOOC-based models propose hybrid pedagogies, such as flipped classrooms or blended learning, that benefit from the strengths of both online and face-to-face learning. However, and despite the fact that there are already studies reporting the promising results about the benefits of these MOOC-based hybrid pedagogies, the number of cases reported in the literature is still small. Moreover, more of these cases still need to be defined to help researchers, scholars, and institutional policy makers exploit the affordances of MOOC technologies, pedagogies, and formats to enhance on-campus education. Participants from the different domains and roles (students, scholars, researchers, or decision-makers) are welcome to participate in the workshop. In this workshop, we will follow up on the discussion about innovative MOOC-based models for hybrid pedagogies that has just started. The idea is to offer an open space for sharing and learning about the experiences of the different participants in order to identify the variety of models that have been investigated and propose a taxonomy of concepts that could serve as a reference to others."This workshop is part of the EC-TEL conferenceConference location: Hotel Beatriz in Toledo, SpainConference date: 18 - 20 September 2015Deadline for proposals: 15 June 2015Submission page hereMore information: http://educate.gast.it.uc3m.es/hybrided/

Call for proposals for 'Envisioning Enhanced Wearable Learning'
To enter this EC-TEL 2015 Design Challenge, submit a 500 abstract (approx. 2 pages) as PDF via EasyChair and design samples of own work (e.g. mock-ups, videos, prototypes) via our YouTube channel, by creating design requirements using the Requirements Bazaar or by simply pasting a link to your design sample in the abstract. Design samples help the reviewers to understand the solution, the design approach and visual presentation skills of participants. Design samples may be submitted as either PDFs or links to a web site. Submissions may include work from past, current and future projects or may just represent creative ideas independent of any project scheme or research program.This workshop is part of the EC-TEL conferenceConference location: Hotel Beatriz in Toledo, SpainConference date: 18 - 20 September 2015Deadline for proposals: 12 June 2015Submission page can be found here (Easychair)

International Conference on Interactive Mobile Communication Technologies and Learning,

The special session “Motivating Students with Mobiles” (MsM’2015) invites original papers
(full/short/poster submissions) focusing on mobile learner motivation and engagement, self-
regulation, perceptions, attitudes and acceptance, emotion and affective issues along with
mobile learning performance. Special focus will be given on motivation issues in game-based

Workshop Colombia University, New York
This workshop plans to bring together educators, technologists, researchers, learning scientists, entrepreneurs, and funders of MOOCs to share their innovations, discuss the impact on education and to answer practical questions such as: How can we best support student learning in MOOC environments? How can MOOCs be successfully integrated with the traditional classroom experience? For which students and in what contexts are these courses most effective? What can we learn from the rich data streams generated by these platforms? How do we structure the learning activities to produce data streams that better support research and learning?